Dune (Part II)
In which Villeneuve and his fellow scriptwriter fix one of my big problems with a character and a relationship in Dune, but also do something I'm in two minds about. All in all, it's a superb movie.
To wit: the reasons why in the books and the various other adaptations, I was never able to get really invested in Chani and the Paul/Chani relationship was that a) his falling in love with her seemed basically pre destined or a causality loop, given all this dreams/visions of her from when they're already in love making him fall in love, b) we never get her pov, never find out why she falls in love with him (beyond "well, he's the main character! Of course she does!), then there's the book time jump from shortly after Paul's and Jessica's integration into the Fremen to ca. five years later when he and Chani already have and lose their first child before the final battle. Basically you get the sense that Frank Herbert didn't want to write a romance in addition to everything else going on in the original novel, which, fine, but it doesn't help me see Chani as a three dimensional character instead of Paul's love interest.
So frankly, I'm 100% on board with what is one of the two biggest departures from the novel, which is that not only do we actually get to see Chani fall in love with Paul and the two getting to know each other in real time instead of Paul seeing her in visions, but we get to know Chani, and Chani is a religious sceptic (not the only one among the Fremen, more about this later), does see prophecy reliance as the control tool it is, falls in love with Paul despite, not because of his Mahdi potential, and Paul finally embracing the role of prophet is a worse betrayal to her than him making his pollitical marriage with Irulan is at the end. Which is why unlike the book, where Chani gets comforted by Jessica with the very 1960s phrase that it's good Irulan has book writing as a hobby because she'll have little else, Chani is totally Paul's true wife, and while women like Jessica herself and Chani are called concubines now, history will call them wives" (good grief, Frank Herbert) - this is the last sentence of the novel, appendices aside -, the movie's Chani parts ways with Paul once the "freeing the 'Fremen" part of the war is over and does not join up on the impending "holy war". (Because the movie goes out of its way not to use the term "jihad", unlike the book.) (BTW, I'm told Denis Villeneuve does want to do Dune Messiah, so presumably Chani will return to Paul eventually - unless he departs from the novels even more re: the ancestry of future Atreides offspring -, but for this move it felt right and like another rare example of a female character who explicitly stated where the red line for her is and what her goal is throughout the story not making a compromise.
The other big, big departer is the compressed timeline. Because Jessica is still pregnant with Alia by the time the movie ends, i.e. her and Paul go from joining the Fremen to conquering Arrakis in less than nine months instead of ca. five years. And that's what I'm "on the one hand, on the other hand" about. On the one hand, toddler Alia (with the knowledge and power of a Reverend Mother since before her birth) is one of the most memorable creepy children in Sci Fi, and also her being the one to kill the Baron (not Paul!) is important to her own storyline in the long run. On the other hand, getting a small child to play ageless and superpowered can be tricky, and maybe Villeneuve doesn't feel comfortable directing children? Also, I suspect the two changes are interconnected, because if you don't have to show kid!Alia as a character and compress the last third or so of Dune, the novel, into several months, then you can develop Chani, her relationship with Paul and the exploration of Fremen society much more organically, without a time jump. And Villeneuve did try to incorpoarate Alia and what makes her so memorable and ultimately tragic anyway, by letting her, post- water of life awakening, communicate with Jessica and sometimes through Jessica as a foetus, and giving Paul his vision of adult Alia (played by Anya Taylor Joy who does have the right eerieness and should make a great Alia in Dune Messiah and hopefully Children of Dune if they do a fourth movie).
Speaking of Jessica, another of my regrets re: the original book is that after being such a vivid and present character for two thirds of it, she all but disappears in the last third after having given birth to Alia (except for the final scene, and there she has the awful "but history will call us wives!" line). (She does come back as an important character in Children of Dune, of course, but that doesn't help an adapation of the original novel.) In this film, otoh, Villeneuve continues to give her scenes by making her the other part of the argument Paul has with her and himself about using religion and the Bene Gesserit planted prophecy to make himself leader of the Fremen. (Rebecca Ferguson continues to be superb as Jessica, managing ruthlessness and emotion or both.) She and Chani are more antagonistic than in the book because of this, but in a way that has nothing to do with clichés about mothers-in-law and everything with Chani not wanting her people exploited and just changing masters and Jessica focused on saving Paul, herself and unborn Alia by exploiting every tool she has, and the Bene Gesserit planted prophecies are a big one. That's the kind of difference-in-goals-and-convictions rarely given to two sympathetic female characters, and I thought it was excellent.
Because we don't skip over ye early days with the Fremen once the aftermath of Jamis' death is dealt with the way the book does, the film gets to show the Fremen as more diverse and harder to convince re: first accepting Paul as one of theirs and later as a leader; i.e. convincing Stilgar's group does not equal convincing everyone else, and not every one has the same kind of deeply held faith. This works for me for the most part, except for the hardcore religious Fremen being referred to as "the fundamentalists" by the more sceptical Fremen like Chani and her friends. I don't know why that term jolts me out of my suspension of disbelief every time when something like "Butlerian Jihad" in the original novels didn't, but it did make me flinch a few times. Anyway, not every Fremen sharing the same kind of relgious conviction = makes sense, as mentioned. There are, after all, many more of them than the Harkonnens ever suspected.
There is no mention in this second movie about Chani being Kynes' daughter, no more than there was in the first. I wonder whether the relevant scenes were cut or whether Villeneuve decided Chani should not be half Fremen by birth but completely Fremen lest he gets accused of the most vocal anti-imperialist-and-relgious-agenda Fremen having one outsider parent?
One of the most memorable scene in David Lynch's movie was Paul's first worm ride, and the tv miniseries couldn't really match it, so I was curious what Villeneuve would come up with. (Yes, I know that scene was released as a clip a week or so ago, but I didn't want to be spoiled, so I didn't watch it.) His version managed to be somehow completely different, yet also intense and exhilarating. Kudos!
There was an actual in universe explanation as to why all the Feyd in the arena scenes in the trailer were in black and white. The Harkonnen planet, Giedi Prime, has a black sun and that's how the light works out. (Also, R.I.P. Thufir, we hardly knew ye.) Austin Butler goes for the charismatic creepy sociopath and pulls it off with less camp than I expected. One unexpected side effect of letting the Baron no longer be (the lone) gay and murdering the occasional boy he has sex with (which I can understand - there's no way that characterisation of the Baron doesn't come across as a homophobic caricature, especially since there are no other gay characters in Dune to balance him) was to remove Feyd's assasination attempt via one of those boys, but instead the film let the Baron ensure Feyd fires against an undrugged opponent both to test him and to make him look more heroic, so the constant game playing between those two characters is there to a degree. But in general the Baron is less present in this second half, and his death by Paul felt weirdly anticlimatic, not just because it comes instead of the very memorable book (and other adaptations) death by kid!Alia but because it happens after the Emperor's man has already disabled the Baron's anti gravity devices. Otoh, the film leaned more into Feyd-as-counterpoint/parallel/contrast to Paul than any other adaptation by retaining the book plot of Lady Margot Fenring and adding her testing him with the box before she has sex with him, and by letting him, unlike Rabban, be effective in fighting the Fremen before Paul finally gives in and uses the Messiah card to rally all the Fremen to his cause.
Florence Pugh as Irulan gets to do the opening narration this time and gets a few scenes in the movie, though not many, just enough to indicate this version of Irulan is clever, competent and will have conflicted loyalties once Villeneuve gets around to Dune Messiah. I'm hoping that as with Chani and like the tv series did, he'll give Pugh more to do and more layers than the novels offer. And can't wait to watch her have scenes with Anya Taylor-Joy and Zendeya, whose film in many ways Dune Part II really is. Which isn't meant as a put down of Chalemet. He's sold me on Paul, despite the earlier visions, falling in love with Chani the real person, on this Paul really continuing to struggle against the future that has him leading the Fremen to conquer the galaxy and only giving in once he sees no other future where they survive. The reunion scene with Gurney Halleck is lovely and Chalemet is full of deep affection, and speaking of Gurney, Josh Brolin finally gets to sing in this film. The warmth of that scene in fact makes me look forward in a "I want my heart to get stomped upon" way to one of the key plot threads of Dune Messiah when spoilery character comes back.
Lastly: Unlike the "suddenly, rain!" ending impressed on Lynch by the studio for the 1984 Dune or the "he'll make the universe a better place for greater justice!" assurances in the tv miniseries, Villeneuve is unafraid to go fully ominous with his ending once the Paul/Feyd duel is over: rarely has "to paradise!" when uttered by a movie's hero sounded so sinister. Paul is now trapped in the future where he's leading an intergalactic war that will leave 60 plus million people dead and he knows it. And this version of him has also lost Chani to realpolitik (at least for now). In conclusion: despite the lack of creepy toddler Alia, my kind of adaptation!
To wit: the reasons why in the books and the various other adaptations, I was never able to get really invested in Chani and the Paul/Chani relationship was that a) his falling in love with her seemed basically pre destined or a causality loop, given all this dreams/visions of her from when they're already in love making him fall in love, b) we never get her pov, never find out why she falls in love with him (beyond "well, he's the main character! Of course she does!), then there's the book time jump from shortly after Paul's and Jessica's integration into the Fremen to ca. five years later when he and Chani already have and lose their first child before the final battle. Basically you get the sense that Frank Herbert didn't want to write a romance in addition to everything else going on in the original novel, which, fine, but it doesn't help me see Chani as a three dimensional character instead of Paul's love interest.
So frankly, I'm 100% on board with what is one of the two biggest departures from the novel, which is that not only do we actually get to see Chani fall in love with Paul and the two getting to know each other in real time instead of Paul seeing her in visions, but we get to know Chani, and Chani is a religious sceptic (not the only one among the Fremen, more about this later), does see prophecy reliance as the control tool it is, falls in love with Paul despite, not because of his Mahdi potential, and Paul finally embracing the role of prophet is a worse betrayal to her than him making his pollitical marriage with Irulan is at the end. Which is why unlike the book, where Chani gets comforted by Jessica with the very 1960s phrase that it's good Irulan has book writing as a hobby because she'll have little else, Chani is totally Paul's true wife, and while women like Jessica herself and Chani are called concubines now, history will call them wives" (good grief, Frank Herbert) - this is the last sentence of the novel, appendices aside -, the movie's Chani parts ways with Paul once the "freeing the 'Fremen" part of the war is over and does not join up on the impending "holy war". (Because the movie goes out of its way not to use the term "jihad", unlike the book.) (BTW, I'm told Denis Villeneuve does want to do Dune Messiah, so presumably Chani will return to Paul eventually - unless he departs from the novels even more re: the ancestry of future Atreides offspring -, but for this move it felt right and like another rare example of a female character who explicitly stated where the red line for her is and what her goal is throughout the story not making a compromise.
The other big, big departer is the compressed timeline. Because Jessica is still pregnant with Alia by the time the movie ends, i.e. her and Paul go from joining the Fremen to conquering Arrakis in less than nine months instead of ca. five years. And that's what I'm "on the one hand, on the other hand" about. On the one hand, toddler Alia (with the knowledge and power of a Reverend Mother since before her birth) is one of the most memorable creepy children in Sci Fi, and also her being the one to kill the Baron (not Paul!) is important to her own storyline in the long run. On the other hand, getting a small child to play ageless and superpowered can be tricky, and maybe Villeneuve doesn't feel comfortable directing children? Also, I suspect the two changes are interconnected, because if you don't have to show kid!Alia as a character and compress the last third or so of Dune, the novel, into several months, then you can develop Chani, her relationship with Paul and the exploration of Fremen society much more organically, without a time jump. And Villeneuve did try to incorpoarate Alia and what makes her so memorable and ultimately tragic anyway, by letting her, post- water of life awakening, communicate with Jessica and sometimes through Jessica as a foetus, and giving Paul his vision of adult Alia (played by Anya Taylor Joy who does have the right eerieness and should make a great Alia in Dune Messiah and hopefully Children of Dune if they do a fourth movie).
Speaking of Jessica, another of my regrets re: the original book is that after being such a vivid and present character for two thirds of it, she all but disappears in the last third after having given birth to Alia (except for the final scene, and there she has the awful "but history will call us wives!" line). (She does come back as an important character in Children of Dune, of course, but that doesn't help an adapation of the original novel.) In this film, otoh, Villeneuve continues to give her scenes by making her the other part of the argument Paul has with her and himself about using religion and the Bene Gesserit planted prophecy to make himself leader of the Fremen. (Rebecca Ferguson continues to be superb as Jessica, managing ruthlessness and emotion or both.) She and Chani are more antagonistic than in the book because of this, but in a way that has nothing to do with clichés about mothers-in-law and everything with Chani not wanting her people exploited and just changing masters and Jessica focused on saving Paul, herself and unborn Alia by exploiting every tool she has, and the Bene Gesserit planted prophecies are a big one. That's the kind of difference-in-goals-and-convictions rarely given to two sympathetic female characters, and I thought it was excellent.
Because we don't skip over ye early days with the Fremen once the aftermath of Jamis' death is dealt with the way the book does, the film gets to show the Fremen as more diverse and harder to convince re: first accepting Paul as one of theirs and later as a leader; i.e. convincing Stilgar's group does not equal convincing everyone else, and not every one has the same kind of deeply held faith. This works for me for the most part, except for the hardcore religious Fremen being referred to as "the fundamentalists" by the more sceptical Fremen like Chani and her friends. I don't know why that term jolts me out of my suspension of disbelief every time when something like "Butlerian Jihad" in the original novels didn't, but it did make me flinch a few times. Anyway, not every Fremen sharing the same kind of relgious conviction = makes sense, as mentioned. There are, after all, many more of them than the Harkonnens ever suspected.
There is no mention in this second movie about Chani being Kynes' daughter, no more than there was in the first. I wonder whether the relevant scenes were cut or whether Villeneuve decided Chani should not be half Fremen by birth but completely Fremen lest he gets accused of the most vocal anti-imperialist-and-relgious-agenda Fremen having one outsider parent?
One of the most memorable scene in David Lynch's movie was Paul's first worm ride, and the tv miniseries couldn't really match it, so I was curious what Villeneuve would come up with. (Yes, I know that scene was released as a clip a week or so ago, but I didn't want to be spoiled, so I didn't watch it.) His version managed to be somehow completely different, yet also intense and exhilarating. Kudos!
There was an actual in universe explanation as to why all the Feyd in the arena scenes in the trailer were in black and white. The Harkonnen planet, Giedi Prime, has a black sun and that's how the light works out. (Also, R.I.P. Thufir, we hardly knew ye.) Austin Butler goes for the charismatic creepy sociopath and pulls it off with less camp than I expected. One unexpected side effect of letting the Baron no longer be (the lone) gay and murdering the occasional boy he has sex with (which I can understand - there's no way that characterisation of the Baron doesn't come across as a homophobic caricature, especially since there are no other gay characters in Dune to balance him) was to remove Feyd's assasination attempt via one of those boys, but instead the film let the Baron ensure Feyd fires against an undrugged opponent both to test him and to make him look more heroic, so the constant game playing between those two characters is there to a degree. But in general the Baron is less present in this second half, and his death by Paul felt weirdly anticlimatic, not just because it comes instead of the very memorable book (and other adaptations) death by kid!Alia but because it happens after the Emperor's man has already disabled the Baron's anti gravity devices. Otoh, the film leaned more into Feyd-as-counterpoint/parallel/contrast to Paul than any other adaptation by retaining the book plot of Lady Margot Fenring and adding her testing him with the box before she has sex with him, and by letting him, unlike Rabban, be effective in fighting the Fremen before Paul finally gives in and uses the Messiah card to rally all the Fremen to his cause.
Florence Pugh as Irulan gets to do the opening narration this time and gets a few scenes in the movie, though not many, just enough to indicate this version of Irulan is clever, competent and will have conflicted loyalties once Villeneuve gets around to Dune Messiah. I'm hoping that as with Chani and like the tv series did, he'll give Pugh more to do and more layers than the novels offer. And can't wait to watch her have scenes with Anya Taylor-Joy and Zendeya, whose film in many ways Dune Part II really is. Which isn't meant as a put down of Chalemet. He's sold me on Paul, despite the earlier visions, falling in love with Chani the real person, on this Paul really continuing to struggle against the future that has him leading the Fremen to conquer the galaxy and only giving in once he sees no other future where they survive. The reunion scene with Gurney Halleck is lovely and Chalemet is full of deep affection, and speaking of Gurney, Josh Brolin finally gets to sing in this film. The warmth of that scene in fact makes me look forward in a "I want my heart to get stomped upon" way to one of the key plot threads of Dune Messiah when spoilery character comes back.
Lastly: Unlike the "suddenly, rain!" ending impressed on Lynch by the studio for the 1984 Dune or the "he'll make the universe a better place for greater justice!" assurances in the tv miniseries, Villeneuve is unafraid to go fully ominous with his ending once the Paul/Feyd duel is over: rarely has "to paradise!" when uttered by a movie's hero sounded so sinister. Paul is now trapped in the future where he's leading an intergalactic war that will leave 60 plus million people dead and he knows it. And this version of him has also lost Chani to realpolitik (at least for now). In conclusion: despite the lack of creepy toddler Alia, my kind of adaptation!